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Pope Francis to ‘Donate’ Stolen Parthenon Artifacts Belonging to Greece

The British Museum is among the last holdouts that have yet to return pieces of the ancient Greek Parthenon back to Greece.

In a gesture many might find curiously defined, the Vatican announced that Pope Francis would be “donating” to his counterpart in the Orthodox Christian church fragments of Parthenon sculptures Greece says were stolen. The pieces, which have been on display in the Vatican Museums for centuries, are contentious items that were pilfered from the 2,500-year-old Parthenon Temple on the Acropolis. The sculptures are also known as the “Elgin Marbles” because most were taken from Greece in the 19th century by Lord Elgin, a British diplomat and collector. Many that ended up in the world’s best museums have been returned, with the exception of those held in the British Museum, which maintains it rightfully owns them. The Vatican called the pope’s donation a “concrete sign of his sincere desire to follow in the ecumenical path of truth.”